Introducing Moab Moon Missions
When I started my photography business just a couple months ago, I knew that part of that would eventually include moon photography workshops, but I had no idea when that would be, or how exactly I’d run them, etc. It seemed like it was a far future thing, maybe next year. When “Moab Moon Missions” popped into my head last weekend, just thinking of the name was apparently the only motivation I needed to make it happen sooner rather than later. Though I usually try to follow the rule of “Always Avoid Alliteration”, the name was too good to leave alone, so I spent the bulk of the rest of my weekend making a plan for implementing these moon outings.
600mm 🔹 F/9 🔹 1/160 sec. 🔹 ISO 160
A lot of the moon shots I do require precision, meaning it’s not a case of, “Let’s go out at the time when the moon is coming up and see what happens and snap some photos”, but rather “Let’s capture the moon in some way interacting with the landscape. Let’s find out what exact spot we need to stand on the ground to capture the moon as it rises behind that tree up on the mountain there during the best lighting conditions. Ok, we should see the top of the moon at 6:53pm and 23 seconds, and its diameter will be about 3 times the height of the tree from our position.” (If you’re interested in learning more about the trick to big moon photos, I wrote about that here). Planning for these types of shots can and often does take several hours of figuring things out. Multiple times I’ve seen people say that their planning app failed them, which may be true, but with much practice I’ve found various ways of accounting for potential variation and missing data in the planning apps. When I was first starting out, I myself had multiple instances where my carefully laid out plans were off by so much that I essentially went home empty handed. I haven’t had one of those for years now. It’s important to get things right before the moment arrives, because if your calculations are off, you often won’t have much time, if any, to make adjustments to correct your position, and you’ll miss the shot you were going for.
500mm 🔹 F/11 🔹 1/160 sec. 🔹 ISO 125
The idea behind Moab Moon Missions is not only to help photographers of all levels to learn how to plan out moon photos with precision, but also techniques and tips for when you’re in the field to maximize what you get out of the experience. After a decade of photographing the moon with landscapes, I want to help others to skip over much of the trial and error that I’ve been through, and also feel the thrill of capturing the moon as it rises over the horizon.
310mm 🔹 F/5.6🔹 1/60 sec. 🔹 ISO 250
So what should one expect on a Moab Moon Mission? They start in town, where I pick students up at their place of lodging, as long as it’s in Moab proper or Spanish Valley, otherwise we’ll arrange a place to meet up before going out to the spot. Destinations will usually be within about a half hour drive. Sometimes we’ll be within Arches National Park, in which case you won’t need to worry about getting a timed entry reservation. We’ll get to know each other some and I’ll want to know some about where each photographer is at on their journey, as instruction in the field will be catered to all levels of experience. Some Moon Missions will require a hike, which will be known in advance, and once on location we’ll go over where and when the moon will be rising, and how I came to plan for that using different software and phone apps.
550mm 🔹 F/6.3 🔹 1/80 sec. 🔹 ISO 125
Because of the planning that goes into these, I won’t be revealing the specific locations publicly, but if somebody that’s interested in coming to one wants to know what subject we’ll be shooting with the moon before deciding on joining, I’m happy to send information on the location and sample photos if it’s a subject I’ve previously shot. I’m super excited for The first Moab Moon Mission coming up in just a couple of weeks, May 14th. If you have any questions on that or the events in general please let me know in the comments, or send me a message on my contact page. If you aren’t able to make it to this one, be on the lookout since I’ll be adding additional events in the coming weeks!
